


echo, antonym narcissus

by morelike-bi-light (bangtaire)



Category: Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: A Girl Plays In A Pond Then Walks Home, Childhood, Childhood Memories, Family Feels, Gen, Insecurity, No Plot/Plotless, One Shot, One Shot Collection, Self-Esteem Issues, Short One Shot, Slice of Life, Victoria centric, Victoria-centric, nothing happens, that's it that's the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 07:02:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20078107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bangtaire/pseuds/morelike-bi-light
Summary: Eight-year-old Victoria has some time to spare before her mother, her sister and she have to return to the Master's house. While her mother chats and her sister listens, she wanders and, as always, makes a mess of herself.Short one shot examining the melancholy of Victoria's woefully under-explored childhood, as well as her relationships with both her older sister and her mother.





	echo, antonym narcissus

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this with the intention of using it in an AU fic in which Victoria and Bree are adopted into the Cullen family, but seeing as that is taking a while to put together, I figured I might as well post it independently.  
Title updated to be a pretentious reference that wasn't initially a thing.

Strings of tangled red hair spring loose from the limping coils of her bun. Nose wrinkling, she hastily scrubs them out of her face with a tiny hand green with dirt, but they’re determined to not be contained and eventually she can't be bothered. She’d stumbled onto a small pond, kept company by a few trees that had wandered off on their own from the great wall of woods running parallel to the road. Yanking the skirt of her dress up to her knees, she chews her lip as sludge squishes between the gaps in her toes. It’s a much more interesting sensation than the church's front steps, and she’s inordinately pleased with herself for finding the little oasis.

At first. Then she looks around, and grimaces. She’d taken her shoes and stockings off to keep them nice, entrusting them to her sister while Mam spoke with Aunt Maud, but if her feet are still dirty when they reunite, she’ll have to walk the whole way back in her bare feet. The logs are old and weak with rot, and none of the rocks are big enough for her to stand on. Brows furrowed, she huffs, deciding to wash anyways and just take her chances balancing on the roots protruding from the bank. It’s that or suffer blistered toes and heels for the rest of the summer, seeing as it takes weeks to get rid of them once they appear, and she’s entirely sure that no muck in the country is worth suffering that.

Wading ankle-deep into the cool, Victoria stares down at her reflection in the brown pond-water. It’s imperfect imitation, as the water gently shifts, but even with that and the discoloration of the mud, her hair is like a curtain of fire, an orange cage for her forest green eyes. Even if she tied her hair back and avoided her gaze, the freckles that splatter her skin would still be enough for her to recognize her face. Who else could it be? Her sister’s complexion is pink and perfect.

Her lips press into a line. Suddenly the quiet buzzing of the woods grates her against her ears. Stretching her neck to see past the bundle of her skirt, Victoria pries a dark, round stone from its bed in the mud and slings it at her reflection with all her might. The loud splash sends ripples cascading through the surface, and a flash of brown-green across the water yanks her head up. Was it a frog? Or a snake? She’d only gotten a glimpse but its skin had looked shiny. The forest is still beneath her gaze, possessive of its secrets. Swallowing, she shakes her head and stares back down, bracing to see her features form again. Maybe this time they’ll be more like Anne’s.

She frowns as it takes longer than she thought for the water to still. Maybe she’d flung it too hard. Maybe the pond was cross with her. Either way, all too soon, her family calls to her down the road a ways, mother weary and sister lonely. Jolting, she gives a last unsatisfied look to the water, still rippling, then turns and sprints to catch up with her kin, thin legs swallowed into a blanket of tall grass. If Victoria were just a bit graceful, like her mother, the sheer height of the grass might’ve made it look like she was gliding but instead, she trips through the weeds like a newborn fawn, leaving the wilderness behind for a dusty road.

“Sorry!” she cries out in greeting. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Slowing to a trot as her feet hit the dirt, she takes deep gulps of breath and presses her cold palms to her cheeks, warm and red from the run. “I didn’t see you come out. I’m sorry.”

“You’re lucky your sister has such a good eye for red,” her mother says, taking the pause to readjust the jars in her basket. “We thought to find you waiting for us down the road, by the bridge until she chanced a glance back and saw you standing in the pond.”

She tucks the cloth back over her goods as Anne eyes her curiously. “What were you doing in that old brown water, little sister?”

“I was just looking,” Victoria shrugs. Her sister purses her lips. “You can see yourself when it's still.”

Their mother tuts fondly and warns her of being too vain, but Victoria just snorts.

“I’m not pretty enough to be vain, Mam,” she chides, crossing her arms, then smiles at her sister, who blinks back. “You should be cautious though, Anne. I wouldn’t go near the water at all if I were you. The fairies might get jealous and push you in.”

Anne beams at her, but Ms. Sutherland merely sighs, glancing heavenward.

“Fairies,” she murmurs, then shakes her head, tucking a strand of wavy hair behind her ear. “Victoria, what happened to your shoes?”

The little girl freezes as her elder sister breezily lifts them up. They dangle limply from her fingers like dead rabbits.

“I have them, Mam,” she chimes. “Victoria gave them to me for sake-keeping.”

Her mother’s dark blue gaze sinks down to her feet, and Victoria's follows. They are green and brown and every other color than clean. She flushes all over again, and looks up into the woman’s flat features.

“You know you can’t put your shoes on those,” she says. Victoria ducks her head.

“I’m sorry,” she mutters, staring back down at them. “I am. I meant to keep them clean.”

“I know you did, Victoria.” It’s not the first time those words have been said. There’s a pause before their mother continues. “Nothing to be done for it now. Come on, girls. It’s still a ways back to the master’s house.”

She starts to walk, and after a moment, the sisters follow. Behind her back, Anne grabs Victoria’s hand, running the pad of her thumb over a particular freckle at the base of Victoria’s palm. In her other hand, she carries her sister’s shoes.

“Tell me when it starts to hurt,” she whispers without looking down. Victoria nods, and both of their grips tighten, just short of bruising.

**Author's Note:**

> Victoria's backstory is honestly one of the gnarliest in Twilight, and that's saying something, so it's really disappointing that almost none of it even gets a mention in the saga itself. That along with all the other problems I have with the canon has inspired me to fix it one chapter or one shot at a time. The impact of our childhood on our identity is muy importante and the concept of how that relates to immortality is really interesting, and rarely explored in original OR transformative work despite being a really great source of potential angst and depth...
> 
> Anyways, thanks for reading! I've got a couple of these planned out, so this may end up part of a larger collection. Please comment if you in any way liked this, or if you want to yell at me to get to the actual story already. It's my main source of motivation for putting my thoughts into words. You can find me on tumblr at morelike-bi-light and chat with me there any time too. Thanks again!


End file.
